When a character in a book has your uncommon last name

My mom and sister Joyce, who both live in Guilford, CT, emailed me on the same day to say there was a new young adult book with a main character named Thea Galehouse.

Both of them were wondering if any of us Galehouses — and that includes my other sister on Long Island — had ever met Catherine Greenman, whose novel Hooked features our uncommon last name. They heard about the book because Greenman is scheduled to read at R.J. Julia, an independent bookseller in Madison, CT.

Nope. None of us had. And it’s strange to think that my last name, which I kept even after I got married, is out there in someone’s fictional story.

I’ve never met anyone with my name that wasn’t a relative. My dad’s people come from Ohio and, if Google can be trusted, the state is still pretty thick with Galehouses, including a family that has owned Galehouse Tree Farmsfor 6 generations.

Boy would I like to buy a plant there.

But Greenman’s bio says she went to Kenyon College in Ohio. AHA! I thought. That’s where she got the name.

But I was wrong, much to my delight. Here’s a copy of the email I sent her, followed by her response!

Dear Catherine:

I just have to ask. Where did you get the idea for the surname Galehouse in your book Hooked? As it happens, I’m the book editor at the Houston Chronicle newspaper, and my last name is Galehouse. It’s not a common name, and I’ve NEVER seen it used in fiction.

My father’s people come from Ohio, and I see from your bio that you went to Kenyon. (Also, I’m pretty sure I bought Bubble Yum in a stationery store, at least once.) Did you hear the name in Ohio?!

Thanks for indulging me. My mother and sister emailed me about this—they live on the CT shoreline and read about your book in a list of upcoming events for R.J. Julia bookstore, I think.

All best-

Maggie Galehouse

Houston Chronicle

And here is her response:

Hi Maggie,
Lovely to hear from you!
To answer your question, I saw your name in a yearbook when I was a teenager and it’s always stuck with me!
I grew up in NYC but spent summers in Sachem’s Head and nothing was more exotic to me than Adams Middle School and GHS! I I used to pour obsessively through my friend Catherine Mattson’s yearbooks and there you were with your pretty long blond hair and cool name!
I hope you don’t mind and thank you for inspiring me!
I wanted to call the book Galehouse, believe it or not, because I thought it connoted ideas of houses, family, etc., but publisher went with racier title (and cover).
Anyway, that’s the story. Funny how life works.
Take care,
Catherine

A few years ago, I encountered a character in a murder mystery who had the same name (unusual) as me, down to the middle initial. My character was the victim and the murder had the same name as my brother!

My family’s last name was used by David Foster Wallace in his book “The Broom of the System.”

The character’s first name was Monroe. Coincidentally by the time I figured out exactly who this Monroe character was, I thought perhaps a cousin, and was about to contact Wallace to ask him about it, he died. I suppose that’s fitting given that the character seems to arrive a bit late on the scene in the novel.

Actually the book is filled with nods to people and places in Champaign-Urbana, where Foster grew up.

How cool! (and now you have another dinner party story ). I always look for my maiden name (Spittal, as you know) in books, and have never seen it, BUT, did see it on the jersey of a Utah volleyball player (male) last year…

Something similar happened to me several years ago. I had posted up a draft of a novel I was writing, and someone contacted me because he’d put his name into Google and the first match to come up as my main character!

Decades ago, the Steve Roper cartoon in the Sunday papers featured a couple of crooks with my mother’s and my father’s full names: Trixie & “Blackie” Blackstone! (Daddy’s real name was Wheeler, but he was nicknamed “Blackie.”) Never did figure out where the cartoonist got/heard their names, as we lived in a small SW Texas town. My folks weren’t crooks though! LOL